


cause and effect

by clarodelune



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (re: the Choking Incident), M/M, Or try to, but in my heart its always kandreil, can be read as platonic i guess, in which i fix the mess nora made
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarodelune/pseuds/clarodelune
Summary: cause-and-effect[ kawz-uh nd-i-fekt, -uh n- ]adjective1. the principle of causation.2. noting a relationship between actions or events such that one or more are the result of the other or others.or:in which andrew understands actions have consequences and that losing kevin might just be one of them.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day/Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, implied
Comments: 38
Kudos: 270





	cause and effect

**Author's Note:**

> i want to say a big thank you to my wonderful beta tntwme for proof reading this for me, things get kind of messy when youre bilingual ngl so your help was v much appreciated <3

It is no secret that Andrew Minyard has an eidetic memory.

He thinks he might have developed it out of need, like a sort of defense mechanism.

He could remember vividly the address of every foster home he’s ever been to. He could recite from memory his foster brother’s schedule, from the time he arrived to the time he left Cass’ home. He remembers the purple and yellow bruises on his twin’s face, and he remembers the pungent smell of gasoline that filled his senses right before the car that carried him and Tilda Minyard crashed somewhere on the interstate.

Right now, he remembers what it felt like to have Kevin’s unquestionable trust, and he especially remembers how easy it had been to lose it.

He remembers the fear, the overwhelming and all-consuming dread that had filled him when he found Neil’s phone, the one Andrew had gotten him, lying on the asphalt—merely the ghostly traces of something that once had been. He remembers the desperation, and the look on Kevin’s face akin to something like grief, like knowledge, like helplessness. He remembers closing his fingers around Kevin’s throat and pressing, how his hands unknowingly mimicked a path that Riko’s own had traced.

Andrew doesn’t regret choking Kevin for Neil’s sake, just as he doesn’t regret drugging Neil out of his mind for the sake of finding out if he posed a threat to Kevin. But they are different—Andrew knows Neil never held it against him, and while Kevin doesn’t outright say so, the way he flinches whenever Andrew gets near him is telling enough.

It’s the little things, like how he avoids eye contact with Andrew as far as humanly possible, or how on the rare occasions they catch each other alone his left hand always seems to unconsciously find its way to his own neck, slowly tracing a pattern, like looking for the mottled dots Andrew’s fingers had left behind.

Phantom pain.

Andrew knows too well. 

It’s the not-so-little things, like that time at Wymack’s when they both reached for the vodka at the same time and Kevin instantly withdrew his hand, as if the closeness had burned him.

As some sort of self-imposed rule, Kevin never explicitly talked about his time in the Nest. Not that Andrew needed him to. It was easy to recognize the signs of abuse when he could see himself in Kevin in many ways, and Kevin didn’t need to tell him for Andrew to know that the time Riko broke his hand wasn’t the first time he’d laid a hand on him. 

He thinks he should’ve known better, and he hates himself for it.

His drugged-addled self would have found it funny —because back then, everything had been funny; everything and everyone, and really nothing at all—, the fact that what he feared the most while dealing with Kevin would come true and be no one’s fault but his.

Riko embodied everything Andrew hated and feared of becoming, and even high off his mind, the thought that Kevin might see him as some sort of replacement for the monster who broke his hand (and his future) was too terrifying and, at the same time, all too possible. It felt too much like trading one choking collar for another, like handing the leash to a new owner.

He had spent so much time keeping Kevin’s at arm’s length —close enough to touch but never enough to let him see through— that he had forgotten that, in the end, Andrew’s worst enemy was, and would always be, himself.

Like Andrew, Oedipus, too, had known of his own fate when he learned from the Oracle at Delphi that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother. Like Andrew, Oedipus, in his eagerness to prove the Gods wrong, had unconsciously carved the path to the ominous fate the Oracle had professed him—a self-fulfilling prophecy, the experts would call it.

Andrew wants to think he and Kevin are more than a fucking Greek tragedy.

Maybe that’s why he was here now, ambushing Neil in their room before Kevin came home from his Latin American History seminar. It was one of the few moments of the day they had to be alone with each other, and it kind of irked him that he had to put a stop to things when his mind was, rarely, thankfully, not too inclined to stop. 

He thinks it might be progress of some sort.

“I want you to stay here tonight,” Andrew says, just as Neil leans down to start peppering small kisses around his neck.

When he looks up, his eyes are too blue, too bright and too beautifully confused, and Andrew is suddenly hit with a strong urge to smack him and wipe that look off his face.

“I don’t think Kevin will be okay with that.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“No, but I do,” Neil frowns. There’s a flicker of surprise in his expression, like he quite can’t believe, or understand, the words that left his own mouth. “Andrew. Why? What’s happening?”

Andrew is silent for a moment, eyes narrowed, considering. Neil waits, patient as always, and Andrew thinks, not for the first time, that he never stood a chance when it comes to him.

“I think it is about time Kevin and I have a little talk, don’t you?”

To anyone else, it may sound threatening. Neil, on the other hand, isn’t anyone else, and his face brightens and smiles like he’s been given the most precious of presents. Andrew has to look away, because Neil looks too pleased about it, but mainly because he doesn’t think he can bear to look at him for too long.

Turns out he doesn’t have to, because Kevin chooses that exact moment to barge in the room and into the kitchen without sparing a single glance in their direction. Andrew clenches his jaw, and hates that he misses the weight of Kevin’s intent gaze on him, even when he knows he just has to turn around to find Neil’s steady one waiting for him.

Andrew didn’t know he could be so greedy.

Kevin was, predictably, not happy with the news that Neil was skipping night practice to “go out to that new sushi place” with the upperclassmen (Andrew wonders if there will ever come a time where Neil’s lies are slower than his truths), and the ride to the court was awfully silent. 

The silence was not the awful part of it. Silence was not the problem. Silence he could work with. They’d shared plenty of silences before, back when Neil was not with them—when it was only Andrew and Kevin, Kevin and Andrew, and the silent battle of wills that kept their dynamic going, waiting for the supernova to explode. 

What he could not stand was the way Kevin kept leaning away, body tight with anticipation, like he kept waiting for the moment Andrew decided to put his hands on him again. Andrew, who had begun to understand that promises were not always a guarantee of fulfillment, knew better than to promise him anything he wasn’t sure he could give him, even if he’d rather cut his hands off than hurt Kevin ever again.

The court was cold at night. Not that the cold could ever be a match for Kevin Fucking Day, who had already lapped the court twice and was now giving Andrew the hardest time of his life at the goal. Andrew, who’s interest (and, says a little voice in his head that sounded a little too much like Neil’s, a burning sense of competitiveness) had flared after Kevin had easily scored on him in the first few tries, was giving back twice as hard everything that was thrown at him. Kevin kept shooting, and Andrew kept blocking, until the score was even and there was nothing left to do but wait for someone to make the wrong move.

Funny, he thought, how much of a metaphor for their relationship that tug-of-war could be.

It was Andrew, in the end, whose reflexes betrayed him in the last moment as he swung his racquet ridiculously close to where Kevin had aimed his shot.

It was not enough.

In all honesty, Andrew feels like shit. A weird combination of pleasantly surprised by Kevin’s skills and fucking fuming at his own incompetence.

He doesn’t have time to unpack all that.

When Kevin tosses his helmet and racquet aside and crouches down, breathing heavily, exhaustion finally taking a toll on him, Andrew takes off his helmet and steps purposefully towards him.

“Enough?” 

Kevin looks up and shoots him a confused look, brows furrowed in that ridiculous way that make his eyebrows come together and his mouth slightly pouty, and it really shouldn’t be so endearing, but it is, and Andrew finds that he can’t quite make himself look away.

“You’re working yourself to death because your Exy junkie brain won’t believe you’re the best until you feel like you’ve reached the height of perfection in your imaginary little Exy scale. Is it enough now that you managed to outscore me?”

Kevin blinks a few times as realization dawns on him. How could he not know? Or maybe Andrew was wrong. Maybe that wasn’t Kevin’s end goal at all. It’s hard to think so, when Andrew is hardly ever wrong.

“Never.”

 _Figures_ , Andrew thinks, and then, more fondly, _junkie_.

After a minute of contemplative silence, Andrew sits beside him, despite the tiredness pulling at his bones. He can feel the way Kevin tenses next to him, the way he side-eyes him like he thinks he’s subtle. Andrew, being Andrew, doesn’t miss it.

Pulling a knife on a person you’ve previously hurt before —and an abuse survivor, at that— is, realistically, not the brightest idea Andrew’s ever had. As expected, Kevin flinches, but surprisingly —or not really— doesn’t pull away, he just simply stares at the knife in Andrew’s hand with wide eyes and something between fear and anticipation. Andrew can’t have that.

He extends Kevin the knife.

“If I ever lay a hand on you again, I want you to use it.”

Kevin does stop, then, and when he looks up at him, there’s something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. He’s looking at Andrew like he’s staring at a Poltergeist, an impossible creature meant to haunt him.

Something crosses over his features, something that wavers between confusion and uncertainty, maybe even a bit of anger, before it melts away and settles on determination.

“No.”

To that, Andrew can frown.

“No?”

Kevin looks away. Andrew’s waiting for that moment of dawning realization, of careful acceptance, but it never comes. Andrew knows he should stop looking for Neil in him. They were different people, different business. Kevin could never understand those moments of hidden truths between secrets and cigarettes, just like Andrew would never belong in the (admittedly fucked up) history Kevin and Neil shared. He wondered if there still was anything between Kevin and him that Neil could never be part of.

“That’s not me,” Kevin says finally. “I don’t want it to be. I never did.”

Andrew, who doesn’t need Kevin to say _who_ , specifically, he never wanted to be like, can relate.

“Neither did I.”

“Riko is dead.” The words sound bitter in his mouth, jaw tight in a way that tells Andrew he has not quite come to terms with them yet. “We don’t owe each other anything anymore,” he says it resolutely, and Andrew tries not to let it sting too much, just to remember that pain, as painful as it was, could never be worse than not feeling anything at all. “I don’t need your pity. Or your knives.”

 _It is not pity,_ Andrew thinks, but doesn’t say.

“I assume this is you washing your hands off our deal.” When Kevin just stares at him, he clarifies, “I broke my promise. You never held up yours.”

At that, Kevin raises his eyebrows in silent question.

“You said you would give me something to build my life around.”

“I did.”

“How so? Enlighten me. As far as I am concerned, I care about this game as much as I did yesterday.”

“I gave you Neil.”

 _Oh_. 

Oh. 

This fucker, Andrew had never wanted to hit someone and kiss him senseless at the same time (and then remembered, miserably, that yes, he had—that somehow, he still did). He sounded so utterly sincere about it, too, nothing like the condescending asshole Andrew was used to. 

“You’re getting bold,” Andrew says, hoping to come off threatening, but Kevin only scoffs in response. “Considering you’re talking to someone who’s currently holding a knife.”

“Would you use it against me?”

 _Ah_ , there it is. The silver lining he’d been waiting for.

“No. Not anymore.” And then, after a minute of silence and betraying every promise he’d made himself, “But I can use it for you.”

The court has always been neutral territory for Andrew, but for Kevin —and Neil, too, for that matter— it meant that the ball was, quite literally, in his court now.

Andrew wonders if this is the moment everything stands or falls.

“I don’t need protecting anymore.”

“ _Kevin._ ” Because he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , say please. Because he’s running out of every single olive branch he can think of, and because with each passing minute Kevin seems more impossibly out of reach.

Kevin was silent for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“Riko’s dead. I don’t need your protection anymore.” Kevin closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. “But I want to- I want to-” Words seem to keep failing him. That’s okay. Andrew can wait. He’s been waiting.

He opens his eyes. 

“It can’t be how it used to be. How we used to be.”

Andrew didn’t know he had been holding his breath.

“I know,” because he does, despite everything.

Kevin’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before. Andrew, who’s studying Kevin’s face like he hasn’t already committed every line and mole to memory, knows the sentiment.

“I do not want you out of my life.” Kevin says finally, like it pains him to utter the words. The _I wouldn’t know how to_ goes unsaid.

“I did not want to hurt you.” An open truth.

“I know,” Kevin says, an echo from Andrew’s earlier words; the implicit peace-offering of the calm after the storm.

It settles something between them.

Andrew doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt this light. It wasn’t after Baltimore. _No._ He remembers how it felt after Neil was given back to him, to _them_ : the constant awareness, the fierce protectiveness, the careful anticipation.

This felt nothing like that. This felt like Andrew had been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders all this time he’d gone without Kevin, and now that he has him —not yet, he reminds himself, but soon; not now, but some day—, he can finally lay and rest. 

It felt like breathing again after minutes under water, and Kevin was his very first breath of air.

It felt like coming home.

Speaking of home.

“Let’s go,” Andrew says when the comfortable silence that had settled between them stretched long enough, standing up and offering Kevin a hand. When he takes it, something like electricity sparks where they touch. Electricity, or familiarity, or the certainty that somehow, impossibly, it just _feels_ right; whatever it was—Andrew doesn’t think he ever wants to stop touching him. “You stink and Neil must be wondering if we finally managed to rip each other's heads off.” 

Kevin stops abruptly, and when Andrew turns to face him, he finds there’s an unamused expression on his face, the perfect picture of a bratty child who had been told _no_ for the first time in his life.

 _Ah, there’s the Kevin I know._

Maybe things were finally slotting into place.

“What?” He asked, exasperated, when Kevin made no move to follow.

“There is no sushi place, right?”

Andrew thinks he might leave him behind.

**Author's Note:**

> haha so let me tell you this was hell to write. on one hand i feel like i really get andrew's thought process, but on the other i can never tell what shit this kid's gonna pull. while writing i just knew one thing: he sure af aint going to say im sorry. like. ye he's sorry. but you've got to find a really andrew way to show it and it's weird considering how much he values verbal confirmation. i just think that, in this context, it's not something that he's ready to give yet. so coming around a realistic andrew way to show kevin he's, in fact, sorry and that he means it, was literally the hardest thing i've ever done.  
> 
> 
> so anyways. i guess you can say the final's open ended but to me it will always lead up to kandreil. i mean they're soulmates!!! they belong together!! what do u expect!!!  
> 
> 
> i dont think i will write a part two because i just wanted to clear (mostly for myself) this part of their dynamic that always felt unresolved to me. because i think at this point nora was 'well, now i have to show the audience that kandreil is really REALLY not canon anymore' like this is the point that seals it. and i think you can kind of see it because of how ooc it was for andrew to break his word like that. but guess what nora. NOT ON MY WATCH!!!!! in this house kevin day gets the HAPPINESS and LOVE he DESERVES and everyone who owes him an apology (which is literally all of the foxes tbh) end ups apologizing to him bc it's what he deserves :))) fin


End file.
